Primary Colors (1998)

March 20, 1998

FILM REVIEW; Portrait Of a Candidate As Casanova

By JANET MASLIN

Published: March 20, 1998

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was a sweet-talking Presidential candidate, a Southern governor who felt our pain. And created some of it, since his idealism and political infighting skills were not easily reconciled. Expediency carried him through crisis after crisis, offering the electorate a lesson in how to turn moral compromise into campaign advantage.

Now it is the basis for ''Primary Colors,'' a polished Hollywood diorama that visits political Pompeii, with an array of vivid caricatures whose real-life role models aren't easy acts to follow. As directed by Mike Nichols and written by Elaine May, it's a movie struggling with its own identity crisis, and with the obvious constraints created by its subject matter. Affectionately satirical at first, it switches gears in its later stages to attempt a serious assessment of political realities, as displayed through the example of Gov. Jack Stanton (John Travolta). He has a salt-and-pepper coiffure, a hoarse drawl, a patina of doughnut dust and a set of disarming mannerisms that make him a brilliantly seductive listener. Perhaps you've seen him somewhere before.

''Primary Colors'' is adapted from the novel by Anonymous, a k a Joe Klein, who fictionalized much of what he saw from the vantage point of the campaign trail. (The author, a longtime friend and colleague of mine, was not directly involved in the filmmaking process.) Part of the book's drama was extracurricular, but the movie can't take advantage of that. So as its central figure, it has only Henry Burton, the cardboard character dreamed up by the author to disguise his identity. As played politely by Adrian Lester, who has a voice like Sidney Poitier's and solid English stage credentials, Henry is a bland, passive presence occupying a good deal of screen time. The real action is on the sidelines, wherever Jack Stanton and his smart, stoical wife, Susan (Emma Thompson), happen to be.

In describing the delicate balance between Jack and Susan, the movie is finely nuanced without revealing what anyone with access to a radio can't already imagine. But courtesy of the Accidental Press Agent in the Oval Office, the movie does have strong flashes of timeliness (when Susan learns of one of Jack's infidelities and throws a key ring at his head, she speaks for a nation) where these two are concerned.

Susan, played keenly by Ms. Thompson, makes an attractive and especially compelling figure, since she contends not only with an uphill political battle, but also with a philandering husband to whom her hopes are attached. Though she chews him out (for being ''faithless, thoughtless, disorganized, undisciplined'') and bails him out (on a ''60 Minutes''-like show after a Gennifer Flowers-like embarrassment), the strength of their connection is never in doubt. Neither is Susan's shrewdness. ''You don't mind us talking business, do you?'' asks a politician who is meeting with her husband. ''No, no,'' answers Susan, with Ms. May's welcome wryness. ''How else could I learn?''

The film likes Jack. Of course it does. As played amusingly if not quite Presidentially by Mr. Travolta, the Governor is an instinctive winner and an enjoyably familiar mass of contradictions. Mixing ruthlessness with real empathy and political passion, he is exasperating even to those closest to him, and yet his powers of seduction always manage to prevail. The star, an astonishing mimic, has the mannerisms down cold. Yet even in ''Face/Off,'' which drew on those same uncanny skills, he had a more fully drawn, dramatically viable character to play than he has here. The movie studies Jack raptly, but it doesn't get under his skin.

As the Stanton campaign takes shape and begins vaulting the famous historical hurdles of six years ago, ''Primary Colors'' calls on a couple of attention-getting Stanton aides. Kathy Bates's Libby Holden is a showstopper, the movie's most heartfelt character and the one who most stirringly articulates its frustrations about the candidate. The film's single best and most serious scene, arriving in its abruptly melodramatic third act, finds Libby desperately begging the Stantons to assess their campaign ethics. It's not easy to drop a monologue about Senator Thomas Eagleton into a mainstream movie, but in this case it works.

Then there's Richard Jemmons, the canny Southern strategist who loves his Mama and has a tart thought for every situation. Richard also has a wonderful way of speaking in unintelligibly folksy metaphors, as in one anecdote that has something to do with a boar and britches. ''I think I speak for all of us when I say no,'' Susan observes, when Richard asks if she knows what he's saying. Billy Bob Thornton plays Richard with sly finesse, although James Carville plays him better.

Beyond these conspicuously colorful figures, ''Primary Colors'' also has its share of bland ones. Several campaign staff characters were funnier and more alive on the page than they are here. Mr. Nichols, who shows much skill in eliciting individual performances, doesn't often make them mesh with the delectable ensemble cleverness of ''Wag the Dog,'' the recent film to which ''Primary Colors'' must inevitably be compared. ''Wag the Dog'' was faster and funnier, shrewder in its background details and spookily ahead of the news. The slower-moving ''Primary Colors'' has more serious ambitions to capture something important and disturbing about this era's political atmosphere. Sometimes it does.

It says a lot about the movie atmosphere that ads for ''Primary Colors'' describe Mr. Nichols solely as ''the director of 'The Birdcage.' '' Mr. Nichols's satirical talents are less evident here than his way with broader shtick (there's a very funny bit from Rob Reiner as a radio talk show host), and the film seldom displays much in the way of directorial hallmarks. Only occasionally does it strike sharply at an essential target, a taste for the trivial that is more damning than any Stanton-esque foibles. As the candidate and his wife are forced onto television to defend the state of their marriage, viewers are seen commenting. A man thinks Jack's babe wasn't bad looking. A woman decides that she likes Susan's hair.

Produced and directed by Mike Nichols; written by Elaine May, based on the novel by Anonymous; director of photography, Michael Ballhaus; edited by Arthur Schmidt; music by Ry Cooder; production designer, Bo Welch; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 140 minutes. This film is rated R.